The performance of a doppler radar fuze is normally evaluated by field testing using actual targets. This is a relatively costly process because it may require the use of aircraft and missiles, and usually results in the destruction of the missile carrying the radar fuze being tested.
Many fuze simulators and testers have been developed in the past. These simulators use the hardware-in-the-loop concept. That is, amplitude only data is collected at relatively slow missile-target encounter velocities by breaking into the receiver channel at a wide bandwidth video stage. Then this fuze is tested by inserting the collected data, scaled to the encounter velocity, into the same port used to collect the data. This process requires breaking into a fuze which is not desired or permitted in Stockpile Reliability Testing. The disclosed simulator is an end-to-end fuze test RF "in" to video "out" which requires no entry into the fuze but just monitors the video output of the missile radar or electronic fuze. The video output is monitored by means of a built-in output connector on the missile radar for use in such testing.
In the past, target signature data collected for use in testing missile radars utilized only one of the two independent parameters (amplitude and phase) or signals required to define a complex signal such as the received pulsed doppler missile radar signal described in this invention. This invention utilizes both independent parameters, amplitude and phase.